The Justice and Development Party and the EU: Political Pragmatism in a Changing Environment

The article focuses on the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and assesses whether the AKP has given up on Turkey's European Union (EU) membership goal since the beginning of negotiations in 2005. The article first reviews the AKP's EU policy, and then analyses shifts in the domestic and institutional contexts of cooperation and their effects on the AKP's EU policy preferences and policy action in the form of reforms. The article concludes with the observation that the AKP has reverted to a ‘passive activism’ in its approach to the EU due to the high cost of passing high-stake reforms.